


We Might Get Through This, After All

by goldilocks



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 13:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20507438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldilocks/pseuds/goldilocks
Summary: As the post-Thanos world stands still, Steve and Natasha try to go on with their lives. Sometimes they talk, usually they sit in silence. One night something (everything?) changes.A missing scene from Avengers: Endgame.





	We Might Get Through This, After All

Some nights Steve visits the Avengers compound after a whole day of talking to strangers. He spends most of his awake time trying to help dozens of lost souls find some meaning in the rumble that is the aftermath of their lives. Despite not having any answers. Despite feeling just as lost as them. Steve may not know much, but he knows she’ll be there, sleepless, staring out the window, miles, years, worlds away.

Sometimes Steve doesn’t even approach Natasha, knowing there’s nothing new he could say, no words that could make it better, so he simply leaves a steaming cup of hot cocoa on the desk and silently walks away. It’s the one thing even he can’t screw up. 

Some nights Steve joins her, makes them each a lousy plain sandwich, pulls up a chair and they watch together as the world stands still, the soft sound of their crunching filling the silence. No one comes, no one goes. The scene never changes and yet somehow, without any proof, and despite all reason, life goes on. Or at least years do.

Sometimes Steve asks Natasha how she’s doing, although he knows full well what the answer is. Sometimes it’s as if she doesn’t hear him. Sometimes she just waves him off with an exhausted smile, tired of speaking. Sometimes she replies. Cracks a bad joke that wasn’t supposed to be funny, anyway. Her jokes always were bad. Steve finds comfort in the familiarity of that notion. They share half a smile, as a tear escapes her eye, followed by another. She rubs them off, shaking her head slightly and the conversation dies down quickly. It’s all been said before. He leaves.

Tonight, however, it’s not Steve who approaches Natasha. As soon as he’s walked through the doorway, Natasha pounces him, quick on her feet as always, and commands in a voice he hasn’t heard in a long time, “Punch me.”

Steve’s caught off-guard. He’s never caught off-guard. “Natasha, what the—”

“_Punch me_,” she repeats. Steve doesn’t miss the way something flickers in her eyes, a wild smoulder he barely recognizes. Perhaps he’s never seen it. Not quite like this.

“You know I’m not going to do that,” he says softly, raising a hand to her shoulder, not quite sure what he’s trying to do. Push her off of him? Lift her up tenderly? Stroke her hair? 

“It’s the least you can do,” Natasha growls. “You help strangers all day. Every day. I never ask you for anything. Why not do this one thing for me?”

“I don’t typically punch my friends,” Steve says, regretting the words as soon as they leave his mouth.

Natasha scoffs, a nasty smile spreading across her face. “Yeah, sure. I remember how you didn’t punch Tony. You didn’t punch him about a hundred times. Your not punching him resulted in his face being covered in contusions. For weeks.”

Steve braves the attack. Natasha may be so desperate to feel anything that she would provoke him, but he still deserves it. That fire in her eyes… He recognizes that misguided anger now. He sees it daily. He knows it intimately. He’s not falling for it.

Steve lowers his voice, this time more careful with his words. “Which is why I don’t want to do the same to you.”

Natasha doesn’t look away, her eyes stubbornly focused on his. The fire still there, flickering, but somehow less furious, hungrier, raw. “Just do something already. _ Anything_.” 

Steve’s heart pounds in his chest. Does it have to beat so loud? He is suddenly aware Natasha can feel his heartbeat quickening, too. It terrifies him. 

“Nat,” he pleads, his voice barely a whisper. “Cut it out.”

“Make me,” she says. 

And he does. Before he can think, before he can control his lips, they’re already brushing up against Natasha’s. The second they’re touching, a panic surges through Steve. He’s fucked up. This is miles away from that kiss at the mall. Those were spy games. This is… something else. Something dangerous. And now he’s ruined the one good thing in his life. She’ll never forgive him. Or stop taunting him. Steve doesn’t know what is worse.

But Natasha doesn’t pull away. Instead of backing off, laughing at his face or calling him names, she pushes down on Steve and deepens the kiss, letting her body mould into his. 

Natasha’s hands are everywhere. In his hair, under his shirt, on his face. Steve can barely keep up. It’s almost as if she’s been waiting for a signal for him for so long, she doesn’t know which place to touch first.

While his brain attempts another meek protest, Steve’s body responds to Natasha’s easily, naturally, as if it’s been her for years now. As if they’ve both been holding something back and finally able to let go. 

Who knows? They might get through this, after all.

*

“You know, I’d offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already.”

She’s been crying. Must be a bad night. Probably Clint. 

“You here to do your laundry?”

_ Definitely Clint. _

“And to see a friend.”

*  



End file.
